On Rush Limbaugh’s Leadership Qualities

With all the recent headlines posing Rush Limbaugh as the GOP’s de facto leader, Media Matters’ Julie Millican and Nathan Tabak provide a timely look back (3/3/09) at the well-documented record of hateful views espoused by the most popular talk radio host in the United States:

On August 23, 2006, discussing the CBS reality TV program, Survivor, in which contestants were originally divided into competing “tribes” by ethnicity, Limbaugh stated that the contest was “not going to be fair if there’s a lot of water events” and suggested that “blacks can’t swim.” Limbaugh stated that “our early money” is on “the Hispanic tribe”–which he said could include “a Cuban,” “a Nicaraguan” or “a Mexican or two”–provided they don’t “start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves.”

Limbaugh added that Hispanics have “probably shown the most survival tactics,” that they “have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders,” and that they can “do it without water for a long time, they don’t get apprehended and they will do things other people won’t do.” When the Survivor producers decided to dissolve the show’s racially segregated “tribes” after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that “there can only be one reason for this … that is the white tribe had to be winning.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you can stomach it, read lots more in this vein on FAIR’s website.

[…] of MoveOn with (b) what the (non)-reaction will be to the identical comparison coming from the leader of the Republican Party who spouts his hate-mongering to an audience of 15 million people. Within […]